Smoke and Mirrors
by SageofFi
Summary: Volume 1 in The Prophecies of the 6th Era series. On the continent of Mu in the Pacific Ocean in 2018, where the Elven races reside. Their history riddled with Human oppression and war. The young Human Sage, wakes with no memories and only one ability: Speaking the ancient tongue of the First Elves. Rated M for mature themes, situations and language used throughout the story.
1. Prologue

Prologue:

"What do you mean, you can't contact her?!" Garel screamed into the mobile next to her long, upward-pointing ear. "She is **literally** the most important person on this entire continent and we managed to LOSE her?! What the fu-"

"Taifun, we are all concerned about this development, but you know quite well how limited our surveillance resources in Maranurr are." the voice on the other side of the connection tried to calm her.

"Concerned my ass!" Garel shouted hysterically. "We are literally failing the prophecy if she dies! And not only that, I lose any protection against the authorities of this shithole country!"

The person on the other side had hung up, obviously no longer willing to deal with Garel's panic. With a loud, uncontrolled scream she threw the mobile at the wall. It miraculously survived the impact and left a surprisingly large dent in the wall. On the other hand, were these surveillance-proof cold-war mobiles not designed to specifically withstand such impacts?  
Garel sat down on her large, queen-sized bed with silk sheets, wrapped her arms around her knees and started to cry. Her personal and emotional investment into this whole affair was too big.  
This was the literal worst case scenario.  
She had been tasked with protecting the person who was destined to destroy this country and had managed to LOSE her. Maybe the single greatest fuck-up in the entirety of Elfish history was entirely her fault.

Sitting on a bed and crying quickly wasn't enough for her anymore and she jumped up to demolish her furniture. An expensive, old mahogany-table? What did it even matter anymore without the princess? She punched it once, twice, and then kicked it over with all the force in her small body. Paintings of her producers, band members and friends? What did they matter if everything was bound to fall apart now? She tore them off the walls and threw them violently into a corner. Garel took a chair and hurled it at a window, but unfortunately that one was shatterproof. After all, she was on the 23rd story of a high-rise apartment building. For a brief moment, she stood in her room, looking for the next victim to panic-fuelled rage as the mobile phone rang again in a corner.  
Garel turned to it again, seriously considering to destroy it completely as a next step, but then her self-preservation instincts kicked in again and she picked it up from the ground.

"Agent Taifun here." she said, wiping the tears from the edge of her eyes.

"This is Ryolloran Ni Balmor, 2nd Prince of the Elfish State of Balmor", a stern, yet calm voice from the other side of the line answered.

Garel had the feeling of suddenly freezing from the inside out as she responded with a shaking voice: "Y-your highness... I... didn't expect..."

"Irrelevant.", the Prince responded. "News has reached us that the Princess of Balmor has gone missing on a special Class A mission under your protection. Are these reports correct?"

Garel had to swallow a huge, painful lump in her throat very hard. Just when she thought the day could not get any worse, it took the only possible route to actually do.  
"Yes..." she finally responded. "They are true."

A short silence ensued between her and her conversation partner, and the Prince said: "You are aware this is a crisis that threatens the very integrity of our country and might cause a nuclear war with the USA, which we cannot win?"

Again, more lumps to swallow.

"Y-yes.", she said with a increasingly shaky voice.

"Good." the Prince said. "We expect this situation to improve within less than a week. Otherwise we are forced to apply drastic measures against everyone involved."

"Y-You mean... nuclear war?" Garel asked into the phone, but at this point the Prince had already hung up on her.

For about two minutes Garel did nothing but stand in the room, listening to the rhythmic beep-beep-beep coming from the mobile, as if neither her body nor her mind could comprehend what was happening to her currently.  
Then another desperate scream escaped her mouth and she threw the phone against the wall.

She HAD to find her.

She HAD to find the princess.

And if the price was a bloodbath, then it was a low price compared to what might happen if she didn't.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

As Sage stirred awake this morning, the sight of the ceiling of his room felt unfamiliar to him. In fact, in a weird and unnerving way, the entire room was alien to him. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in this room last night and the night before last as well. But beyond that, his confusion with his own life and memories grew ever stronger.

He moved his body up to sit at the edge of the bed and gaze at the mirror in front of him. Icy blue eyes stared back at him, with a pale, almost bloodless looking skin and a nose that was placed in an almost artificially symmetrical way in the face. Sage did not recognize the face looking back at him, yet it was looking right back at him and mirroring his movements as his own on the reflecting surface. He couldn't bear the staring contest with himself for long and stood up, walking to the window to let some fresh air into his tiny chamber. The air outside wasn't much fresher then the air in the room, but it was thankfully cooler due to the morning temperatures and the slight dome of smog over the city below him.

His room was on one of the highest floors of a larger apartment complex, so he had a pretty good view over the ugly concrete behemoth below him, but unfortunately this would mean all the heat that gathered below the walls of the building during the day would eventually rise upwards and end up in his room.

It had been two days since Sage had been rescued by the some of the other tenants of this building. Rescued from being a lost and confused man, wandering the streets of Maranurr City clueless of who he was, why he was here and what he was doing. 

Yes, that's right... Amnesia.

Sage had completely lost all his memories of his past life until now and not only that, but he did not even have a proper perception of himself as a person.  
Him? A Human man in what appears to be his late twenties at a guess?  
That didn't seem right to him, but he could not tell why.  
According to the possessions that were upon him when found, consisting of; no more than a few hundred Maranurrian Dollars, twenty American Dollars and a passport which states he was a Maranurrian Citizen, these did not seem correct to him either or aid in triggering any of Sage's lost memories. What's more, Sage was unable to even read all of the English street signs, yet he fluently spoke the elfish tongue, both the traditional and the simplified, modern versions. Such fluency in both tongues was remarkably rare for a Human, more so not to not be fluent in English.

This was probably the main reason why the residents of this apartment complex even agreed to take him into their care; as a human who spoke their native tongue was more likely than not, an ally to the Elfish cause. And Elves do NOT turn down allies. Well so long as it suited them, that is.

Sage felt his own hand slapping himself, when noticing these thoughts beginning to overwhelm again. The Shaman of the clan that resided within this building had told Sage that he didn't have any superficial injuries and that this amnesia would most likely cure itself after a few days. Sage has little option but to trust these words and hope this amnesia was indeed temporary. Despite the fact this prognosis had been given by a person with no formal medical education. 

Sage was torn from his own thoughts by the creaking noise of a window opening below him. At first this event was only worth a short blink of the eye, but it caught Sage's attention more as he saw a girl with short white hair leaning through the window and attaching a green-white length of cloth to the sill of her window. Weirdly enough, this piece of cloth seemed familiar to him. Identifying it as the banner of the royal family of Balmor... no, it was the flag of the Elfish nation Balmor. The royal version had a green-white-green striping with the tree of life in the centre of the white stripe, while the national version of the flag additionally had a red star, surrounded by a black gear placed above the tree of life.

Sage's curiosity had been awoken now, because this flag was not something you could just show off freely inside of Maranurr. This was a full-blown criminal act which could spark some serious trouble for whoever was flying this flag. In addition to the flag, a song now started playing, a song which Sage quickly recognized as the hymn of Balmor. This too, felt incredibly familiar to him, although he still could not properly pin down why. The girl was leaning out of the window again, watching the ugly skyline of the city in the distance, quietly singing along with the tune. 

Sage could not resist his burning curiosity any longer. "Hey... Girl!" He yelled. He had to ask the girl about this. "What you are doing there, is actually a pretty strong crime."  
Immediately after this declaration, Sage regretted the choice of words as he realized how easy they were to misinterpret.  
The head of the girl twisted in the frame of the window until she looked straight up at him. Brown, curious eyes, below an untidily cut white hair stared back at his face, surprised and a bit scared too, but quickly changing into a state of open hostility.  
"What'cha gonna do, Half-ear?", she called back up at him in Elfish words, as her hair was falling down the sides of her head, revealing long, pointy ears and prominent cheekbones. "Report me to the police?"  
Sage wanted to call an apology down, but the white-haired girl had already pulled her head back in, and closed the window, leaving the heretical flag slowly wave in the morning breeze, yet no longer blasting the song of a hostile nation all over the city.

"Great..." Sage thought sarcastically, as he pulled his head back in. "Where ever I go, I make friends."  
As if searching for an excuse to change the subject of his thoughts, Sage felt his belly started to growl. His eyes turned to the clock and he realized with slight surprise that it was still six o'clock in the morning. A whole two hours before the breakfast would even be prepared. He sighed.

The elves were treating him well, but they were just not offering the right amount of food. An Elf with his 50 Kilos of weight could survive the entire day on a diet of sugary fruits and seeds, but that didn't mean his 95 Kilos of Human body mass could endure the same diet. Sage was almost constantly hungry and he knew that he needed proteins in his diet, which would barely be found in this place.

"Screw it..." Sage thought and pulled a blue robe over his shoulders. The clothes which the Elves had given him looked admittedly somewhat ridiculous, yet they widely cut, large ceremonial dresses were the only thing he could properly wear, as even the largest of Elves were merely reaching his chin with their foreheads and had nearly half his width on the shoulders.

After getting dressed, Sage unlocked the door of the tiny apartment and went down the eerily quiet floor until he reached the main staircase. The apartment block was old and built a dirt-cheap concrete box style which was popular in the 1960s. This style provided the much needed space for the booming Human population. However that was back nearly 50 years ago. In the present day, Humans were mostly gone from these types of buildings and had been replaced by huge Elfish family's, who considered themselves independent clans.

This building alone housed approximately maybe 300 to 350 Woodelves, living together in a community so obsessed with preserving their own culture, it would literally rather commit a crime then open up to the city around them.

When Sage thought of it once again, it was rather surprising actually that the Elves of this clan had actually saved and sheltered him. Lucky for him that he could speak their language, otherwise the Elves who found him out on the streets would have more likely threatened him with guns, when he wandered into their territory. 

When Sage reached the ground floor of the apartment building, a wide entrance hall opened in front of him. This part of the building had been altered the most by its occupants to suit their needs. Dozens of small apartments had their walls torn down to make space for their industrial-level kitchen, the massive dining room, the grand entrance hall and the Clan leaders' quarters. He turned left to enter the dining hall. It stretched widely in front of him with seven tables each over 20 meters long and hosting each 40 chairs, on which residents could sit, eat or listen, plus a smaller table at the end of the hall, in an elevated position for the Clan leaders' family to sit at.

Again, Sage held himself on the left side of the room, until he got to a huge two-winged door, leading into the kitchen of the Clan. Looking around, it was almost a trip in time back to a 90s industrial kitchen, except for the oven which seemed to have been recently renewed. Another door led down into the food cellar, but Sage ignored it and went straight for the fridge. He was hungry and determined to each whatever protein-rich food he would find.  
Of course he was disappointed with what he found. Despite the fridge being bigger than him and considerably wider, it was almost completely filled with fruits, vegetables, honey and even cake. Again, his stomach rebelled, demanding food that would make him feel actually fed, instead of these empty sugars which the Elves were so addicted to.  
Luckily for him, as Sage dug a bit deeper, he could find something at least resembling what was yearned for, a loaf of brown bread and eggs. For a short moment the bad consciousness came back to haunt him. After all he was stealing the supplied of a group that possibly saved his life without their consent, but again, his stomach growled, but louder this time, shutting his brain up. With a quick movement that almost seemed instinctual, he opened a few of the kitchen counters doors until he found a salt, oil, butter and a pan which he quickly put on the stove of the kitchen. A drop of oil and a buttered bread later he was about to crack the first egg open, as an amused voice from the other side of the kitchen spoke up.

"You know..." a young, somewhat sarcastic female voice said. "What you are doing there is actually a pretty strong crime."

Sage looked up with the expression of a child stealing cookies, only to look into the face of a confidently grinning, young Elf with white hair and a caramel-toned skin. She had brushed her hair now, revealing that what Sage had identified as untidily cut was actually a traditional elfish haircut, which mourners wore. Her left eye covered by a streak that was slightly longer then the bang over the right brow. All in all she was the embodiment of a young, conservative Elf, even wearing a traditional Dyun, a wide, armless top with no cleavage that obstructed any idea of her body's shape, if it weren't for the green skirt she was wearing.  
She walked over to him, around the kitchens counter to stand close to him.  
"I was against helping you. You can't even be left alone for a single day stealing your savior Clan's possessions." said the Elf girl with the bitchy tone confidence of someone who felt superior. 

"I'm just hungry. How did you even know I was here." Sage tried to object, but the Elf interrupted him by a bunch of stuttering noises and raised her finger as if she was about to make a statement to him.  
"You cannot just walk into the kitchen and steal the Clan's food. As Grandniece of the Clan's Leader, I'm obligated to report this." she said with a truly bossy undertone. But then she took another breath. "UNLESS that is… you agree to help me with the breakfast preparations." 

Sage gave her a confused look, followed by a not less confused "Eh..?"

The Elf pushed her hands into the hips and responded: "Like hell I'm going to let this chance slip to get some extra help on the kitchen service this morning."  
Her tone was still as confident as before, but much less threatening.  
Sage gave her a mistrustful look, then nodded to the pan and the eggs again: "Does this mean I'm allowed to fry these?"  
"Go ahead." the girl stated. "... but I'll get my share."

Sage nodded. This was probably a much better offering then he could've expected from her and even better than being reported to the clan leader... or whoever was responsible for the supplies in this clan.  
While he was cracking the eggs open onto the frying pan, the girl sat down on the kitchen counter watching him with the curiosity of a child observing a foreign animal's behavior. Sage did not have to ask to get her to talk again.  
"So... the Human who lost his memories..." she said, obviously as a conversation starter.  
Sage glanced up from the pan, surprised at the girl which was, despite her significantly heightened position still looking up at him.  
"Don't be surprised." the girl said. "We haven't sheltered Humans here in... a lot of years, I guess. And my Granduncle only agreed to it, because you were able to ask for it in the traditional elfish way. Either you're the most elaborate spy ever sent into such a boring 3rd class tribe like ours or you are an ally in serious trouble..."  
Sage swallowed quietly, focusing on turning and salting the egg in the pan properly. He didn't like where this was going.  
"So... which one is it?", she asked, obviously determined to keep this conversation going, even though it was more a monologue at this point.

Sage sighed and lowered his head, understanding she was not going to stop.  
"If only I knew that..." he replied short-spoken.  
A grin was her reply, a surprisingly curious, youthful grin: "Alright. You don't want to tell me. I will find it out anyways. After all, I have sufficient material to blackmail you."

Sage rolled his eyes in slight annoyance on this never ending flow of words coming from the Elf.  
"It's... just a few eggs." Sage tried to justify himself as he pulled the pan off of the stove. Before he could even get one of the eggs, the Elf girl had already pulled out a fork and skillfully lifted one of the eggs onto her plate.  
Sage recognized she was teasing him, testing if he was going to fight back again on her micro-aggressions.

"What even is your name?" he asked while trying to pull the remaining eggs onto his own plate using a fork. Unfortunately as it turned out, Sage severely lacked the dexterity in his hand, which the Elf had displayed.  
"Kyu." the girl responded. "Kyu Ptaha..."  
"I would introduce myself now...", Sage responded as he crammed pieces of what were once pretty good looking fried eggs onto his bread. "... but apparently you already know everything about me."  
Kyu laughed slightly: "Actually, I know precisely nothing about you."  
"See?" Sage asked with a bitter undertone in his voice. "This is precisely how much I know about myself. And now if you would excuse me..."

Sage sunk his teeth into the bread and eggs in front of him, feeling a deep satisfaction from the mere taste of something which registered as 'real food'. He forgot about the manners, which he didn't know where he learned them from and demolished the meal before Kyu would even finish her first egg. She gave him an amused grin in response to that display.

"I think we should add more beans to our diet, as long as you're here..." Kyu said. "Even though they aren't so popular with the kids."  
"Beans?" Sage asked, while suppressing a slight cramp in his belly.  
Kyu nodded swiftly: "Yeah, rich in proteins. I knew you Humans need a lot of it, but I didn't know it was this severe."  
Sage sighs and scratched his head: "Yeah... I didn't know either."  
Kyu smiled and picked up another piece of egg on her plate, pushing it into her mouth. After a short break she grinned: "Alright... break time is over. Go into the cellar... third door on the left side. We have our fruit supplies there. I need 3 kilograms of strawberries, two kilograms of peaches, 10 loaves of white bread, 6 bunches of bananas, a kilo of gadaias and 8 liters of yogurt." 

As Sage did not immediately react, Kyu clapped twice and hushed him towards the cellar entrance.  
"Go, go, we only have one and a half hours left and we need to be done with the pre-preparations before my Nan comes downstairs."  
Sage looked at the door confusedly but decided to follow Kyu's order to keep the peace and earn his eggs on bread. As he entered the cellar the first thing he noticed was how new it looked. Modern compared to the rest of the building and illuminated by neon tubes, giving it an almost bunker-esque vibe. Sage was even more irritated when he looked left and right and saw modern doors with digital locks lining up against the wall. Only as he walked down the floor a bit, he encountered a door that could simply be opened by pulling on a doorknob. Freezing cold gushed into his face as he looked into the room and a light turned on, revealing a huge, cooling room with store-shelves lined up in aisles that carried a multitude of easily perishable foods.

He walked in and looked through the shelves, finding the gadaias first. It was a fruit native to Maranurr and very popular among Elves for their high amount of calories while still remaining heretically sweet. It had a long, almost pill-like shape and was roughly as big as a large human fist, with the largest one reaching the length of a child's lower arm. Sage places two bags with 500 grams of weight on his arm and continued his search, soon finding large 2 liter canisters of natural yogurt on the ground. He picked one of them up and carried them quietly out of the cellar to Kyu who prepared some kind of oversized mixing machine in a corner of the room. Then he went back to get more supplies of the list and repeated the process. After his 3rd round he spoke up again: "Kyu, what's behind the security doors in the cellar."  
Kyu responded with one of her confident, mysterious smiles and said: "Oh wouldn't you like to know that?"  
Sage wasn't having it. Standing in the kitchen with crossed arms he stared at her until she noticed him again.  
Annoyed she said: "It's the lifeblood of this clan. It's heritage. It would be worthless to a human like you. Such as; religious artefacts, ancient tools and texts which we keep preserved. Stay away from it or I won't guarantee I'll let you survive this."

"She's pretty radical..." Sage thought to himself as he turned into the cellar again to get strawberries. She didn't sound like she was sarcastic or even just exaggerating. It was weird to see such a young girl getting so pissed over a few pieces of very, very old stuff. On the other hand, Elves had a reputation for being ardently backwards on their customs and believes, something which got them a lot of trouble the humans that pursued a strictly progressive way of politics. He got back up again and placed the fruits very close to Kyu, to see what she was actually doing. It seemed that his previous observation was correct. It was indeed a giant mixer, which Kyu was filling with unnervingly large amounts of strawberries and sugar. 

When she noticed Sage's look she instantly hushed him away again.  
"We still need more fruits. And when you're done with that, I need you to prepare the pudding." she said.  
"And what exactly do you do?" Sage asked, having no real idea how to actually cook a pudding.  
"I make the fruit cocktail." Kyu replied while taking the first round of yogurt out of the mixer and into huge pots. "Or at least start doing it. My Nan and Taym will help us at 7:30 am."  
Sage sighed and nodded surrendering. He went back downstairs and collected the rest of the ingredients for the yoghurt.  
"How do you even pay for this?" Sage asked.  
"Sharing..." Kyu responded simply. "Everything we collect in payments, welfare and wages is collected by the clan and we use it to buy everyone food and maintain this house."  
"That sounds quite unfair to those who work..." Sage instinctively objected.  
"That sounds like something a Human would say." Kyu responded nimble-witted.  
"Touché..." Sage responded and sighed. Helplessly he looked around in the kitchen. Kyu followed his looks and drew some smart conclusions from it.  
"You know how to fry eggs, but not how to make pudding. Interesting detail." she noted. "Okay then, let's switch up tasks. You start cutting the pineapples and oranges and I will prepare the pudding..."  
"Is she... analyzing me?" Sage wondered when she watched the young Elf continue to rush through the kitchen as if she was doing this on a daily basis.  
She went to pick up huge bottles of soy milk from below a kitchen counter, then got a pot with at least 50 liters of capacity and began filling it with the milk. Sage sat down and grabbed the Pineapple peeler next to him and started to peel the thick skin off the fruit. He made progress, slow, but steady and to his own surprise, didn't cut himself in the process.

In the background, the milk was already foaming as Kyu started to fill in a powder that slowly began to solidify the milk. This was the moment when another person entered the room. Sage didn't even notice her at first, only when her hoarse voice echoed through the mostly empty kitchen, he looked up from the fruits in his hands.  
"Good morning, Kyu..." she called.  
It was an old Elf lady, with short, white hair, cut in the same manner as Kyu, which gave them an almost creepy family similarity. Even the clothing was similar, except her skirt was longer, and she wore a cotton jacket additionally to the dyun, which had a dark purple color. Also, the old elfish lady had the right side of her face entirely covered in elfish tribal tattoos and Sage had the sneaking suspicion that they continued over her entire body below the dress. The old woman noticed Sage before he could say anything.  
"I see, you got yourself some help." she said.  
"Good morning, Nan..." Kyu responded and nodded. "Yes, Sage was kind enough to help me with my kitchen service. You know how much I hate it."  
"Indeed." the old woman said. "Back in my days..."  
Kyu let out a dramatically loud and annoyed moan, which made the older Elf stop talking and instead leave out a quiet, amused giggle. The elder Elf walked towards Sage, clearly scanning him as she came closer. Sage knew Woodelves had very good eyesight, better than humans at least, so she would probably noticed the spots of sticky juice all over the robe that the elves had given him, as well as perhaps the spots of fat that frying the eggs had left on his clothes. Would she judge him for it? Something told him she had some form of authority here.  
"So, you're that human boy without memories."  
The way she said it was clearly telling him that this wasn't a question but a statement and Sage noticed the same kind of observant awareness, he had spotted in Kyu. He only nodded as a response. What else could he answer with?  
A warmer smile appeared on her face and she said: "It does seem like nice Humans exist after all. I hope you find your memories soon, so we can get some clarity about you. My name is Hlaya. Hlaya Ptaha."  
Again, Sage nodded, but for the sake of politeness, he added: "Yes, I hope the same. And my name is Sage... Sage... Smith, if I remember correctly."  
He actively had to recall the picture of his passport to know his name. This definitely wasn't normal.  
Hlaya took some of the peeled pineapples from Sage and placed them on the kitchen counter, cutting them into small little pieces and collecting the juice that ran down the cutting board. A few, quiet minutes later another Elf, a man, maybe in his late 40s entered the room. Kyu's Grandmother just strictly said: "You're late Taym. You let a Human and an old woman beat you in terms of working morale..."  
This was clearly a pretty harsh criticism as the man gave Hlaya an offended look, but didn't dare to speak up further. The Elf referred to as Taym, seemed to confirm what Sage had suspected about the authority of Kyu's Grandmother.  
Quietly, the man got to the cupboards of the kitchen and took out long, but small spoons that looked like someone had just cut an empty wooden ball into two halves and attached them to the end of a stick. He picked up drinking glasses too and carried all of it into the dining room. Kyu and Sage only had one more opportunity to actually talk and it was a brief one when they both stood in front of the pudding pot and used ladles to fill the somewhat slimy goo into smaller pots.  
"Hey Kyu..." Sage asked quietly and slightly afraid too. "How often do we actually have to do this kind of kitchen work?"  
Kyu smiled: "Don't worry, the kitchen service rotates among the Elves who do not work on a daily basis. I have it roughly twice per month."  
Sage sighed in relief, as it was pretty clear to him that Kyu would most like use him again as support for this task. She just seemed ALOT like the kind of girl who would do precisely this.  
Seconds later Kyu picked up two of the pots and started distributing them on the different tables. Sage mimicked her behavior, same as she started to take small pots with a sprout-salad that Hlaya had prepared into the dining room, which slowly started to fill with guests. To Sage it seemed somewhat weird how almost everyone in this huge apartment complex was attending this dinner. It did not seem that anyone really had an interest in dining in privacy, although if there was someone, Sage would most likely not see him here. Instead, Sage heard an almost irritatingly loud layer of conversations, echoing through the dining room. 

While Sage was still searching for a place to get some privacy, Kyu tugged his arm and dragged him along.  
"Come and sit with the Gang..." she said, leading him ahead and practically dragging him to a somewhat lonelier corner of the 7th table in the hall. The seats here were not completely filled and obviously, whoever enjoyed some privacy during his breakfast would go here. Aside from some loners, there were three people sitting on the table. Two of them looked like sisters, with the older one having long, curly and red hair in addition to a bright skin-color and blue eyes, while the other, younger one had short, straight red hair in addition to a pale skin-color and turquoise eyes. The third one looked completely different from the other three, including Kyu. Even Sage, who did not actively know all that much about Elves, was legitimately surprised to see someone like her in this place.  
The third Elf was clearly not a Woodelf. Instead of the slim, slender figure of the Woodelves, she had a tiny, yet somewhat stocky body type. Her head was disproportionately large with huge, black eyes in her skull and a tiny mouth, which upon opening revealed a line of razor-sharp teeth. She had long blue-ish hair and her skin-color had a gray, somewhat unhealthy tone. When she stretched her short fingers for the pudding bowl, Sage could see small webbed skins between her fingers. A Riverelf.  
"Now... who's this?" the Riverelf asked with a blink of her large eyes. In a very, very weird way, all of this made her look somewhere between cute and creepy.  
"Sage," Kyu said. "The Human without memories... you know... that guy."  
"Of course we know." the older redhead responded. "The entire Clan is barely talking about anything else in the recent days. But what is he doing on this table?"  
"He owes me a favor, Titania." said Kyu in response. "He agreed to help me with our mission today."  
A slight moan escaped the mouth of the redheads, while the Riverelf seemingly opted to stay quiet and listen for now.  
"Really?" the younger redhead asked. "Another mission?"  
"You could go to school, for a change." the older one said. "Or at least let us go to school."  
Kyu shook her head. She was completely in her element right now, this was clearly visible.  
"The revolution is right around the corner and you know it. Mum and Dad will both come back and when this happens, all of us need to be prepared." she said in the tone of a General, motivating her troops for a battle. "We meet after dinner in our base! I'll bring "the Steaks"."  
Sage looked at the reactions of the redheads, but the redheads just looked back at him, scanning him. Then they all three turned to the Riverelf, giving her looks as if asking for her opinion. But the Riverelf didn't respond and instead quietly spooned the pudding from the bowl. And ultimately, no one responded, letting Kyu have her will.  
Just why did Sage get the suspicion that this was not the first time things turned out this way? 


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When Sage entered the room, which Kyu had dubbed as 'their base'; he was actually a tiny bit disappointed. This was less of a base and more of... just a room. It was larger than Sage's chamber, in fact almost 5 times as large and it had multiple counters and wardrobes, dividing it in different sections for different purposes, but it was still just the living space of someone. To his left; there where the backsides of two bookshelves with a gap between them, obviously replacing a proper door frame. A blanket was placed at the gap, dividing the place completely into two. To his right; there was a hip-high cabinet and a closet dividing the room further into something that seemed like a pseudo-bedroom.

From what Sage saw in this angle, there was a bed in that right section and some storage room for personal belongings, but he could also see another door leading to, presumably, a bathroom. Right in front of him, in the section that he could directly access from the door, there was a group of pillows and couches, in front of an old tube-TV. Most of the inventory actually looked like it was at least second hand and a lot of it had short, white hair sprinkled over it, like there was a white-furred cat running free here. He was pretty unimpressed by this until Kyu pushed him towards the blanket that divided the room. When he passed through this make-shift door a slight, sulphuric smell crawled into his nose and made him shiver. The rest of the 'gang' was actually already present. The two redheads sat on a small couch in a corner, next to a bookshelf overflowing with books of different kinds while the Riverelf was standing in front of a working table that was filled with chemical elements of different kinds and Bunsen burners and Erlenmeyer flasks. Sage only now noticed how small she actually was, ranging at not more than 1.3 Meters and looking almost like a child with cartoonishly large eyes.

There was actually an additional member present, sitting on a table in front of the couch and eating what seemed like legitimate red meat. Sages jaw almost dropped when he saw the girl, for several reasons. First of all there was the face, which had such a beautiful almond-shape and the purest of all pale skin tones that it was hard for him to not stare at her immediately. Only then he noticed that fact that this girl certainly was not an Elf of any kind. On the one hand there was there pure body size. She had some difficulties sitting on the small chair and cut her meat in a bent over position. But she looked a bit weird for a human too as Sage noticed her strong jaws and wide shoulders as well as a yellowy tone in her eyes. When taking a bite of her steak she revealed weirdly long canines that had more resemblance to the Riverelf's shark-teeth then than a Human jaw. Maybe her clothing added and over-exaggerated her weirdness a bit. She had a woolly cap on her head, from which long, white hair ran down to her chest, so sage couldn't actually confirm from the shape of her ears, that she was actually not an Elf. Her body was cloaked almost entirely in a white dress with no cleavage and sleeves that nearly covered the entirety of her hands, which was kind of impractical when it came to eating. She was dressed into wide pants that kinda looked like they were bought from a 70s themed hippie market.  
"Okay, since the entire group is here now, let me introduce everyone properly..." Kyu said her loud, heroic way. She first pointed towards the redheads.  
"These are my Sisters, Titania and Laniel. They are both older than me, so do respect them."  
She pointed to the Riverelf who didn't even bother all the much looking up from her chemistry stuff.  
"This is Curel, the gang's brain. Seriously, she's crazy smart and actually twice as old as all of us, so DO fucking respect her."  
She pointed to the white haired girl that was still busy eating but now gave a Sage a shy wave between her bites.  
"This pie there is Inu, our mascot and muscles. Be nice to her, she's more sensitive then she seems."  
Said girl blushed a bit and gave Kyu a slightly annoyed look: "I would be happier if you just told him to respect me as well; just like you did with the others..."  
Kyu sat down next to her and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.  
"But you're our clan's special guest, no matter what so you get a special treatment."  
As she was saying that she bent over and kissed that girls cheek.  
To Sage, each of the things Kyu had said was a revelation on a different level. Kyu and the two redheaded Elves were sisters? While you could see the family similarities clearly in Laniel and Titania, none of the two looked much like Kyu in any way. Then, it surprised him that the Riverelf really was that old. From her body type she absolutely looked like a child and even though Sage could see a higher age in the way she looked and acted, Sage did not expect her to be technically a mature woman. And third, that Inu girl was special. In which way however, Sage could not yet tell. But he didn't buy into her human disguise, yet he didn't dig deeper either just yet.  
Laniel was the first to speak up again after Kyu had ended.  
"So... what is he doing here?" she asked with a doubtful gesture towards Sage. "I thought this was a feminist group and no boys allowed."  
"Never said that..." Kyu said in the tone of a deeply convinced leader.  
"Yes, you did..." Titania contradicted.  
"Indeed." Curel added from the background.  
"N-No boys allowed." Inu said, still being hugged by Kyu. "Your words."  
"It's the reason I can't use this for quality time with Uyilam", Titania added.  
Kyu looked around and blushed, but was quick to find a solution to this.  
"I-it's just a temporary membership." she said. "An honorary one... Also, for today's mission we can use all help we can get."  
Quiet sighs went through the rooms and Titania leaned forwards: "Alright, what's your plan anyways?"  
This was obviously what Kyu had waited for. With a huge gesture she slammed her palm onto the table and said: "We will do what we always do. We fight the oppression!"  
The enthusiasm seemed to stay within the borders of the reasonable in the sight of such a vague statement, yet Kyu didn't seem to mind the lack of enthusiasm in her friends.  
"You all know that what I'm saying is correct. These damn Maranurr National Party Nazis have set up a camp by the road-bridge to the John Bell district. They are harassing our clan and the members of the other clans in our district, who have to go to the Elven Schools in the John-Bell-District.", Kyu said.  
Titania crossed her arms, seeming genuinely curious about this undertaking for the first time today.  
"Wait..." Laniel said. "You wanna attack the Nazis on the Cambridge Road? That's insane. The Gardyner chief went there to negotiate and was taken into custody. "  
Kyu nodded: "That's why we're not negotiating. They are not armed with guns and only harass women and teenagers, who can't defend themselves. And they are only 5. So we can defeat them, if we have Sage. After we beat them up sufficiently, we will escape by splitting up and we either take the Lynfalyl route or the sewer access in the Jamestown Passage."  
Laniel, Inu and Titania looked at each other as if they all knew exactly what these words meant, while Sage had nothing left but blinking confusedly.  
"This..." Titania said slowly. "Sounds actually like a really great idea... but what makes you think we can outrun the humans or even the Police"  
Kyu grinned widely: "Did you expect I hadn't planned this already? I had Curel prepare some gadgets for us..."  
The was obviously the Riverelf's moment to shine, as she raised from her working bench and held up 6 glass bottles who were seemingly filled with different layers of powder and metallic plates between them.  
"These are my most recent smoke-bombs. I pulled the basic design from the internet but I improved it by making the firing mechanism more reliable and the bomb as a whole smaller."  
She walked over to the table and placed the bottles on the table. Each of them was held closed by screw-cap and the way Curel respectfully placed the bottles on the table showed that these were anything but harmless toys.  
Everyone, except for Sage leaned in curiously on the bottle and finally he could see why all these girls were still members of this club, even though Kyu's way of going about it was clearly something one would need to get used to. They played around with explosives and did forbidden things, just like other teenagers or young adults, but taken to the next level.  
"Okay, using these smoke-bombs is not 100% safe." Curel started her lecture on advanced homemade explosives. "But if you handle them correctly and don't break them they should easily explode. To make this happen, you need to take off the cap and grab the bottle by the neck. Like this..."  
She wrapped her small hand around the upper half of the bottle, so her hand was covering a layer of white powder at the top end of the bottle.  
"Next you need to wait 5-10 seconds until you feel this part getting extremely hot. Then you need to throw it quickly. As soon as the glass bottle is broken, the reaction will start and cover an area of 3-8 meters with smoke within a minute. With all 6 of these babies we can transform their entire camp into a smoke-signal for the natives."  
"Sounds easy enough..." Laniel said and picked one of the bottles up with an exited glimmer in her turquoise eyes. Curel quickly pulled the bottle from her hands and placed it back on the table with a strict look in her black eyes.  
"Here are some rules. Do not open the cap unless you want to throw it. You can stop the reaction from happening by closing the cap again, but I would not recommend it, as the risk of explosion is high and the smoke-bomb will not work anymore. Do NOT throw it between your feet like a Ninja, as glass splinters will cut through your legs. You can use this as a throwing weapon, but remember that this wound is a 1st degree armed assault and since we're Elves, we'll serve a life sentence for it. Then, do not purposefully inhale the smoke. It's not poisonous, but inhaling large quantities of it will lead to asphyxiation. Understood?"  
She looked around like a teacher who had just finished a safety lecture on chemistry. As everyone nodded she turned to Sage.  
"You too?"  
Sage, who kind of only realized now how neck-deep he was stuck in this, nodded quickly and uncomfortably.  
"One more tactical tip..." Curel added. "Only throw them when you are trying to escape. If you throw these to attack the Nazis, you'll have to walk into the smoke, fight and get out again with your orientation intact. None of us can do this."  
"Alright," Laniel sighed, clearly bored by all these safety rules. Finally Curel allowed the girls to pick up and examine the bombs. Kyu actually took two of them and looked appreciative through the transparent glass.  
"Excellent work, Curel. I don't know what we'd do without you." she said and handed one of the bottles to Sage. Nervously he looked over the mixture inside and placed it in one of the wide pockets of his robe.  
"Can... anyone maybe explain me what all of this is about?" Sage asked.

Everyone turned to Sage, as if they had forgotten that he was there and a slight smile hushed over Curel's face.  
"Of course she didn't explain you a thing, eh?" she said with a patient tone. "Well, given that you probably don't know much about the whole situation, allow me to give you a brief rundown. The Maranurr National Party is supporting Anti-Clan laws in this country, which would effectively allow the government to throw Elves into jail that live together in groups. Everyone knows this is ridiculous, but these thugs are trying to push for the laws by making us look dangerous. In other words: They assault and harass Elfish children and women until someone fights back and then they frame us for being 'violent, mafia-like structures'."  
Sage thought of what he heard right now and then gave Kyu a puzzled look.  
"Wait..." he said slowly. "Doesn't that mean we're doing exactly what they want us to do?"  
Kyu crossed her arms resiliently: "Yes, we do. That's why we have to hit them hard enough that they do not come back. We're not gonna let them harass our kin any longer. How long until they determine that verbally abusing and threatening our family isn't enough, so they beat a child into hospital to provoke a backlash. All of this has happened before and we will not let it happen."  
Sage looked around, if this kind of thought resonated with the rest of the group and apparently, it was ideologically consistent in that regard. While he was checking on the other members in the room he noticed Kyu eyeing him curiously. He understood. This was a test.  
Kyu didn't just bring him here to increase her manpower, she did it to test if he would take their side or not. And Kyu was the kind of person who dealt in absolutes. Who was not with her, were with the Humans, this was just the way political radicals like her thought.  
Strangely he did not feel any reason to not do it. Not like he has anything better to do with his time currently and he could not find a way in which Kyu's ideas and actions were not justifiable. Even though he recognized the dangers and flaws of her thought, he sympathized with her for whatever reason.  
He nodded: "Alright, I'll help you."  
A faint smile crept onto Kyu's face.  
"Alright! Then there is no time to waste.", she called, while clapping one hand against the bottle she was holding, making its internals shake a bit and giving Curel sweat on her forehead. "Let's put these sweeties to a good use." 


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 

The city which Kyu guided her group through was... not beautiful. Obviously, this was one of the more poor districts and Sage saw primarily Elves or poor and worried looking Humans. Some seemed like they suffered from some kind of addiction while others just flat out slept in the streets. Interestingly, the homeless-looking people were almost entirely Humans with very few Elves and even these could always be found in some kind of group. Sage would notice that there were several of these big concrete blocks in this city with smaller apartment blocks sprinkled around them, separating them like undrawn borders. More than once Sage would see banned Balmorian flags, either the royal variant or the national variant and sometimes even an Elfish Maranurrian Flag: Red-yellow with a green crossbar and three crowns in the center, instead of blue-yellow with a green crossbar without additional ornaments, which was the official flag. The red stood for the Communist destiny of the elves, the crowns for the traditional noble families that ruled the Island in a feudal style prior to the colonial era. From an ideological perspective it was weird how Elves worshiped the revolutions promised by Marx while at the same time wanting to return to the feudal roots of their country, yet it just seemed like something Elves would attempt. All of these symbols on the flags were banned though obviously, the police did not have the necessary authority here to enforce a ban on unconstitutional, that being Elfish symbolism.

Kyu turned left, led them though a narrow alley and the city changed entirely, to the point where Sage wasn't sure anymore they were still in the same place. Suddenly, the quality of the roads and sidewalks improved and the endless monotone concrete-monsters where replaced by elegantly designed multiple-party apartments, shops and restaurants. The population walking around in the city turned overwhelmingly Human and seemed much happier, chatting and shopping in the street canyons. Kyu did not have much of an eye for them, though Sage couldn't get to see enough of the place, as everything here seemed like a new experience to him.

What was an iPhone?

Was that shop that sells alcohol publicly he saw as well?

All of this seemed so weird to him, as if he wasn't used to this society at all. Soon the group took over the lead and Sage didn't stray for the sole reason, that the last in line, Curel reached for his hand and pulled him after her. The road took a turn left and suddenly they headed straight for a wide river.  
The bridge under which Kyu gathered her troops was quite a feat of modern architecture, spanning at least a hundred meters over the stream that lead to the sea. Large freight ships were crossing the sea below it, smaller fishing boats and yachts of rich Humans could be seen in moderate distance towards the shoreline. Sage watched the scenery in awe and only Kyu's rough pokes could get him back into focus.  
"Okay, guys, remember our tactics. Do not show yourself before you know what we will attack. It's better to run away then to get caught. Don't show your faces..." she pulled a black backpack of her shoulders. Inside of it was the equipment for the raid. Smoke-bombs, telescopic truncheons, some petrol in a plastic box, a lighter and some green face-masks with a crown icon on it. Kyu handed out a face-mask, a truncheon and a smoke-bomb to each of them, but kept the petrol and the backpack to herself.  
"Ready?" she asked after each of them had covered their face sufficiently and each of the girls had bound her hair back to a ponytail. Sage felt really uncomfortable, but everyone else in the group nodded once and decisively. It was too late to turn back now. 

Like natives on the warpath they snuck up the green stripe of the bridge, leading up to the street, which seemed pretty busy this morning. The road was stuffed with cars, trying to cross the bridge at the peak of morning traffic. An endless avalanche of steel and aluminium, heading for the peaks of this concrete desert on the other side of the polluted river. Yet a surprising amount of the people who wanted to cross the bridge were Elves and none of them seemed to possess a car. Many of them were even kids walking in groups or accompanied by young men and women. On the other side of the road, they saw their target. It was a camp by the roadside, consisting of three tents and five motorcycles. The spot was occupied by Humans with white skin colour, each wearing matching biker coats. They were blasting English music onto the street, which was so noisy that even Sage, who could understand English, couldn't make out any lyrics except some racist slurs. By the camp, they had erected signs, giving out a clear message.  
"Elves are not equal to Humans" with a devilishly grinning old Elf next to it.  
"God hates the Elves" with two kissing male Elves next to it, looking unhealthy and small.  
"Your time on this planet is over!" with a large, white hand spraying insecticide over Elf-mosquito hybrids.  
"No Elfish-Jewish conspiracy in Maranurr!" and two hands shaking each other, one with the flag of Israel and one with the flag of Balmor in its sleeve.  
Only one of the humans was on his feet, walking over the sidewalk and occasionally shouting a racist slur against a passing group of elves of just flat out spitting or kicking at them. The Elves did their best to avoid him were ever they could, obviously aware of the humans goal to achieve an escalation, but it didn't work out properly.  
Immediately, Sages inhibition's to commit violence against these guys sunk rapidly. Yeah, they probably deserved it, even if it was against the law. Kyu gestured the group to remain hidden behind the bridges rail and peeked to make a plan.  
Then she leaned back and said: "Stay back. I think if we'd burn these motorcycles, we'd hurt them much more then our bats ever could."  
"No..." Curel contradicted quite quickly. "I will do it."  
Kyu gave her a confused look, but Curel was quick to explain: "Hey, let's be honest. In an actual fight, I'm of no use to you, but I'm small and unsuspicious. I could sneak up to the camp without them seeing me as a threat. Besides, Sage is going to need you as a guide, once you're trying to escape."  
Sage was genuinely thankful they had Curel in the group, who seemed to be the only one to constantly keep track of his status and where he needed help. It was almost like she was babysitting him.  
Kyu nodded in agreement.  
"Alright, do as you want." she handed over the backpack with the petrol and made space for Curel to climb up the green. Curel threw the backpack over her shoulder and rushed onto the street, were the traffic was so stuck, that she could easily move between the cars and avoid getting hit. Also, thanks to her ridiculously small body size, she could even use the smallest of the cars as cover, so it was impossible for the humans on the other side to spot her. In fact, it got pretty hard for even Sage and Kyu to track her movements, once she had passed the second row of cars.  
For her size she was moving surprisingly fast and crossed the sidewalk using a crowd of Elves as additional cover. Sage could see from his position how she continued her stealth mission by using the motorcycles as cover while spilling petrol over the saddles and engines. She moved from motorcycle to motorcycle, but unfortunately she only had enough petrol for three of them. She threw the plastic container away and pulled the lighter out of her pocket. Seconds later the first of the Harleys was set ablaze and she quickly turned to burn the second one. Success!  
But then a loud screech of warning came from the camp. Five huge, muscular men had jumped up and two where already running to their motorcycles.  
"Now, attack!" Kyu shouted and pulled the truncheon from her pocket.  
All of the Elves plus Sage and Inu jumped from their cover and onto the street. Unlike Curel, none of them paid much attention on staying hidden. Kyu specifically went as far as to walk over the bonnets of the cars to get to the camp quicker. Unfortunately, they seem to have underestimated the distance and obstructions they had to cross to aid Curel, who had thrown the lighter away and pulled the smoke-bomb. The two men were already closing in on her as the support for her was only halfway across the street and even though Curel's running skills surely were impressive for her size, she wasn't fit to outrun someone almost twice her leg length.  
"Fuck!" Sage thought, as he realizing that this wasn't going at all as planned. Curel was going to be captured by them. Kyu was already one row ahead of the rest and yelled: "Take on someone your size!"  
Unfortunately, this did not stop the two humans from chasing after Curel, but made one of the other two men step into Kyu's way, swinging an iron chain after her. Kyu dealt with the situation as heroically as she could. She ducked down, below that Human's strike, which was admittedly not too hard given Kyu's smaller body proportions. She then swung her truncheon into his side like she was David attempting to cut down Goliath. And indeed, it was an impressive testimony of Kyu's fighting prowess that the man bent over painfully holding the side where the young Elf's weapon had struck him.

Still, Curel was in danger and Sage was the closest one to saving her. Right in this moment, the situation got worsened as Curel stumbled from her attempt to get from a crouch into a standing position again and starting to run at the same time. The first of the humans was now only less than two meters away from her and Sage pumped everything of his willpower into the goal to reach and protect her, letting his legs do him some impressive maneuvering and leaps between the cars. Still, he wouldn't reach her in time, no matter how much he tried.  
In this moment, something weird, yet very fortunate happened. Only a meter before he could reach the tripping Riverelf, the human stumbled himself and stopped in his movements, looking around confusedly as if he had lost track of where Curel actually was or as if a sudden attack of dizziness had come over him.  
"Well, that's what you get for standing up too fast from that campfire..." Sage thought and tackled the human at full swing, sending him flying in an uncomfortable-looking angle to the ground.  
Curel now had time to regain her balance and threw the smoke-bomb into the camp, close to the motorcycles. A loud hissing noise ran through the battlefield, as if a firework had been started and immediately after, the bottle exploded with a deafening 'Bang!' and releasing thousands of glass splinters along with smoke into the air. The third motorcycle obviously got hit by the heat wave and the petrol ignited, causing a smaller, second explosion. Now, not only the camp was in panic, but also the street with people leaving their cars to avoid becoming a collateral damage and Elf children running onto the street to avoid confrontation.  
"Run!" Sage shouted towards Curel and got ready to face the second guy who had chased after her by instinctively lowering his stance and gripping onto his weapon. For a second he was genuinely worried about the outcome of this duel, as this guy was bigger than him and a lot heavier, but luckily someone was actually having his back. Like a snow-white force of nature, Inu sprung into the frame, ramming her shoulder into that bull-neck's chest. She was not smaller than him. Maybe lighter but also, filled with ferocious determination. Sage could almost see something animalistic in her in this second as she threw herself to the ground with his victim and started punching him into the face with her fist and the hilt of her truncheon like it was nothing. She seemed like a completely different person, going from cute and shy into battle-frenzy in a matter of moments. Instead of worrying about that, Sage raised his eyes and looked around if someone needed help. Surprised he realized that they were actually winning this battle.  
Mercy seemed to be a foreign word to Kyu, as she pulled her weapon back and then swung it from below into the face of the bent over human in front of her, most likely scarring his face and knocking him out. Only two humans were standing at this of them was the guy that stood by the street and harassed people and the other guy was still back at the campfire, too overwhelmed by the charge of the Elves to react. This was his demise, as Kyu, Titania and Laniel now jumped into the circle, formed by the tents and professionally surrounded the men. It was Laniel who leaned forwards and struck for his knees, sending him to his feet and Titania leading the first blow to his face. Sage noticed that Elves might be physically weaker, lighter and smaller than Humans, but Woodelves at least seemed to move with superior speed and reflexes which allowed for this crazy maneuvering even as untrained rioters. Sage twitched as he realized that his newfound friends would not stop when they merely had defeated the enemy. They were mad, furious even.  
Whether this was rightful fury or just mindless rage, it didn't matter at the moment as they all were beating now on opponents who were already on the ground. Inu was still sitting on her victim's chest, punching his face to a bloody puddle with each second she remained here, while Kyu and her sisters ganged up on a single guy who had not even made the attempt to fight back, beating him with their truncheons, even when he was loudly begging for mercy.  
"Enough!" he called and walked over to Inu, grabbing her shoulder. "Enough"  
Inu turned to him and for a second he was legitimately scared that she might attack him. Her yellow eyes had turned into narrow, glowing, mad balls in her eye-sockets and her fists where covered in her victim's nose-blood and maybe even a bit of her own.  
But then, Inu seemed to come back to her sense. Her pupils expanded and she looked below herself, examining the human she had just beaten into the hospital. She stood up as if to avoid getting grabbed, even though he wasn't really conscious at this point anyway.  
She looked at him, with remorse in her eyes, at least for a second, then they displayed panic.  
"Sage, watch out!" she called and launched herself forwards. Sage could barely look over his shoulders to see what was going on there, but he quickly realized, that the guy which he had tackled down to save Curel had stood up and attempted to attack him from behind. All he was getting now was a powerful punch coming from Inu's first, right into his belly. He stumbled back and vomited onto the ground, before collapsing.  
"That's enough!" Kyu called, while facing the guy on the bridge, holding his phone to his ear. It was pretty obvious he was calling reinforcements of some kind, be it the police or thugs of his kind. "Let's get the fuck 'outta here!"  
She threw her smoke-bomb into one of the tents and ran towards Sage to grab him be the arm. Inu, Laniel and Titania all took different directions, with all of them avoiding the road. Sage hastily reached into his pocket and opened the bottle-cap before unprofessionally throwing it into the camp. He was just too happy to get rid of active, breakable explosives in his pockets. Four more explosions he could hear behind himself, each one more quiet, until Kyu turned around a corner with him so he couldn't hear the camp anymore.

For a second it looked like Sage was better at running then Kyu, thanks to his overall bigger body and longer legs which allowed him to take over the lead, but after just a short sprint towards the end of the alley, Kyu proved to be the one with the greater stamina.  
It was weird, because the slim body's of Elves looked more like they were sprinters rather than runners. Yet, Kyu looked like she was pretty in shape and having less than half his body mass probably helped in maintaining a higher speed over a larger distance.  
"Where are we going?" he called after her,  
"Shut up and run!", she called back over her shoulder. "They are still up our ass!"  
As if they had waited for the signal, sirens could be heard in the background, issuing Kyu to take a turn into an even smaller alley. Somewhere behind, someone called: "Two went down that alley! Get them!"  
"Fuck!" Kyu cursed, quickly taking another turn and leading Sage straight over a backyard lawn. "We're taking a secret route."  
She picked her phone up and changed course to escape the claustrophobic backyard lawn. It was weird how the Humans here insisted on maintaining 4 square meters of grass behind their house, even though there was no sunlight shining down on it ever. Kyu pulled him on, through another passage back into the poorer district with the concrete-appeal. The police seemed to know though the fugitives were aiming for this part of the city, as squads of police cars were entering this part of the city just now.

This woke the city.

Elves stepped on the street to stare at the Police cars with open hostility, while Humans retreated off the streets. Tension was building fast, but Sage didn't see much of it as Kyu pulled him across the street and into another gap between two concrete-monsters. This time, it seemed like a dead end though as the sirens were behind them and the alley ended in front of a high concrete wall.  
Kyu had the phone now on her ear, which she had pulled out before they even had entered this district.  
"Uyka?" she asked. "Please, open the fucking window, were in a bit of trouble here."  
She hung up. Just seconds later, a window, about 10 metres above the ground in the alley opened and a rope ladder was dropped down the wall.  
"Hurry up!" a voice from above called. "If the police see you climbing up here, it's my clan that's in trouble."  
Kyu rushed to the ladder, but then stepped aside to let him go first.  
"I dragged you into this." she said. "So I'm gonna go after you."  
Sage nodded and began to climb up. Only halfway up the ladder he realized Kyu was probably trying to avoid him looking under the short Dyun-skirt of hers. For a second he internally mourned the lost opportunity, and then he had to begin focusing his thoughts and strength on lifting himself through that narrow window above.  
A young elf with purple-dyed hair and tribal tattoos all over her body stood in the room and scrutinized him mistrustfully.  
As Kyu lifted herself through the window, she asked: "Kyu, why have you brought a Human into our clan? And why is he wearing a Do-Karrh?"  
"The Do-Karrh he is wearing was a gift from our clan." she said while catching her breath. "And he is an ally. He speaks our tongue and helped us demolish these national-party fuckers at the bridge. His loyalty must not be doubted."  
"Oh, is he?" the purple-haired Elf asked in a sharp, ancient dialect of the Woodelves.  
"Apparently, I do..." Sage replied between his exhausted huffs in the same dialect, with just a pinch of sarcasm in his tone. This legitimately surprised the Woodelf.  
"Indeed." she kept talking in her people's dialect. "I thought humans could not even learn our tongue properly. I have never met one who spoke the Haroun Dialect."  
"Well, one time is always the first time..." Sage responded, proving his fluidity in the girl's language. "I appreciate your help."  
The girl shrugged, seeming much less hostile to him now: "I'd do anything to aid an ally. Unfortunately, there are not many in our clan who think the same way, so you must go soon."  
Kyu intervened into their formal chat: "Can't we please go back to normal Elfish? I can barely understand a word you two say."  
"Of course..." the tribal girl said and added with a pinch of smugness. "Though, you might consider learning the Haroun dialect one day. It's the language of your ancestors and the Elfish that you're speaking is a butchered version to fit into the clumsy throats of clumsy Humans."  
Kyu rolled her eyes, but spread her arms to embrace the Elf into a hug: "Thanks for your help, Uyka... we might've been caught if it wasn't for you."  
Uyka nodded with a grin on her face: "Yeah, you owe me one. On the other hand, you stand up for our people, something which our clan's leader is not brave enough to do. So, at the end of the day it's probably me who owes you one."  
Kyu was still holding her arms wrapped around her friend, but now let go and looked deep into Uyka's eyes.  
"The day were the clans rise up will come, Uyka." she said. "And as long as you are among them, your clan will be present the day the Human oppression over us goes down in flames."  
"I will be there." she said and offered Kyu a fist-bump which she happily accepted.  
"Good." Kyu responded to her and made a gesture to Sage to follow her. "We're no longer required here."  
"I'll guide your way out." Uyka said and lead the duo out of her room and through a long floor towards a staircase. This building looked a lot like the Clan building which Kyu lived in, but it seemed smaller and more compact. The entrance hall on the other hand was wider and contained a massive statue of a winged Elf with sharp facial features, facing the entrance of the building.  
"Hello, Lady Jamira.", Uyka said when passing by the statue.  
"Hello, Lady Jamira.", Kyu repeated when crossing the edge of the statues shadow with her feet.  
Sage just watched the statue fascinated as he passed by... and almost bumped into Uyka, who had stopped and placed herself in his way.  
"For someone who knows our language so well, you know surprisingly little about our customs." she said clearly displeased. "You greet the Lady Jamira, when you see her. Everything else will bring dead girls and ugly sons."  
Sage raised his eyebrow confused, but a small push of Kyu convinced him it was smarter to not offend the woman who had saved them.  
"Hello, Lady Jamira."; he said with a slight bow.  
"Apologize too." Uyka said, with a tone that sounded a lot like an order.  
Sage sighed and bent over further saying: "I'm truly sorry for... neglecting your presence."  
This seemed to satisfy Uyka and she stepped aside so Kyu and Sage could walk out of the building.  
When they finally went back onto the street Sage looked over to Kyu questioning.  
Kyu sighed: "Lady Jamira is a figure from Elfish religion. And a pretty powerful one too. She is the Symbol of Lust, Fertility and Love. Uyka's Clan worships her as protectorate of their clan. Seriously, if you ever happen to think our clan is weird in their traditionalist beliefs, just spent a day with these religious fanatics and you'll quickly notice that we're actually pretty progressive."  
"I see..." Sage just responded. Yeah, a Clan as strict as Uyka's would've probably not taken him in, so Kyu's family probably wasn't even too bad in that regard. The streets on this side of the building were much calmer. The police was still patrolling, but on the other side of the building and in the border-area of the districts, so their chances of getting caught were massively reduced by the trip through the building. Still, Kyu hushed the two to hurry on and get to their Clans building.  
Sage already wanted to go through the front door, but Kyu pulled him back again and led him around the building until they found another rope ladder. Sage climbed up ahead, as his company waited next to the ladder again for him to take the first steps.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sage passed a few windows on his way to the top but not many and, to his surprise, ended up in Curel's room again. Said girl obviously already had been here for a while, as she sat on one of the pillows around the TV and was reading. Quiet rock music was sounding through the room of an artist that mixed Elfish lyrics with English ones. Curel lifted her head from her lecture as Sage climbed in and her face brightened up visibly.

"You're back!" she called and jumped up to hug Sage, before he could even get firm ground under his feet. Luckily, even a fully glomping Riverelf couldn't really push him back due to the pure difference in size and weight. "You literally saved my life back at the bridge. I don't think my bones would've survived punches from this thug very long..."

"Uhm..." Sage responded, while Curel hung around his neck like an over-sized Riverelf-necklace.

"Yeah, yeah, we're back.", Kyu said as she stepped through the window frame and made Curel drop down from Sage's neck, by pulling one of her hands off him. Sage could notice a slight twitch in Kyu's ear as she heard the music in the room.  
"Really, Curel? Garel Hurricane again?" she asked.

Curel gave her a hostile glare: "Hey, stop judging me for it. She makes objectively good music."

"She's a Rosh-Clan outcast in 2nd Generation and turned her back on her kin to collaborate with the Humans.", Kyu held against Curel. "She traded her clan and her identity for fame and loads of Human cash. She even appropriates our language for her monetary schemes."

"She never even knew her clan, because they had made her mother an outcast." Curel argued. "And she worked very, very hard to get where she is now..."

This argument went on between the two, while it faded out, into the background for Sage. Garel Hurricane. Somehow this name rang a bell in his mind and a pretty alarming one at that. Something... dangerous surrounded this name. He tried really hard to convey an image of the feelings he felt about this name and for a brief moment he would see the face of a white haired elf with a confident grin. Someone placed her hand on his shoulder.

"What's your opinion about this?" Kyu asked him from the side.

Sage twitched slightly, out of being startled from his ongoing thoughts.  
"Uhm... ", he said, slightly confused. "I... haven't listened if I'm completely honest."

"See, Kyu?" Curel said, obviously taking this as a supportive statement to her position. "This entire debate is so stupid, that he doesn't even listen anymore."

Sage looked to Curel, surprised how skilled she was with twisting his words: "Hey, that's not what I-"

Kyu sighed and interrupted him: "Don't worry; it's not even that important."

She looked towards the window and then to the door saying: "I'm worried for the rest though. They shouldn't take much longer to reach this place and I get nervous so..."She stood up and walked towards the door."I'll see if I can spot them, alright?"

Curel nodded and Sage too didn't have anything to object, so she left the room. Curel gestured to the group of free pillows next to her saying: "Why don't you take a seat, Sage?"

Sage nodded. Maybe getting a bit of rest wasn't too bad after all of this trouble he went through in the past... 3 hours? Really?Only 3 hours?

It felt like his life was turned upside down since then, but maybe this was just due to the lack of experience he could draw from. After all, anything he could pin down as a memory in his mind had happened within the last two days. He dropped his large body onto one of the couches in the living-room-area, taking up almost the entire space on it with his body.

Curel raised her book again, as if she wanted to go back to reading, but already after just a few seconds Sage could see her eyeing him over the edge of her book.  
"You really saved me back there." she started the conversation again, as Sage didn't say anything.

"I already said it was nothing." Sage said, unironically, not to boast around. It felt natural to him to save a friend during a fight. Then he was more surprised when Curel suddenly stood up and sat down on Sages belly, firmly demanding his attention.

"Saving my life is not nothing.", she said with an intense stare that looked all the more creepy due to her block iris and pupils that barely allowed to make out a difference in their colouring. "In fact it's a pretty big deal."

"A-alright." Sage backed off and raised his hands defensively.

A sneaky grin crept on Curel's face and gave him a glimpse onto her shark like teeth: "Hmm, isn't this a lucky coincidence. You save my life and the two of us end up alone in my room directly after it..."Her small hands ran up his chest, until her upper body could lean forwards and get very close to his face.  
Sage looked at her confused for a moment, and then he began to understand. Or at least he believed he was. She was flirting with him, wasn't she? Or was this...

"You deserve a reward for this. I'm one of the last of my kind on this continent after all." she said and pulled down the cleavage of her top suspiciously low. Even though there not being too much to see, this did make Sage blush nervously.

"W-wait C-Curel..." he stuttered. "I-Is this what I think it is?"

Curel responded with a smug grin: "Of course it is. I owe you a big deal; also neither of us are bound to the stupid rules of this Woodelf clan. So why not make out for a bit?"  
This was way too fast. And this girl was way too confident.

"I-I think I heard somewhere that Elves and Humans..." Sage tried to contradict, but Curel just laughed.

"I'm glad that you're worried about me..:" she began to respond. "But these rules are for the Woodelves. More specifically, the Clan-Woodelves. I can choose not to obey the Clan rules. And I happen to find you hot enough to break them for you."

Sage was still looking for a gentleman's way out of this, as Curel leaned forwards and pressed her lips on his. For a second, Sage could feel a somewhat salty taste coming from her mouth, and then she was already pulling her lips back and skilfully slid of Sage. He was still confused by the kiss and couldn't even get confused about her fast quitting yet, as he heard a cute, yet strained voice from the window.

"I'm back! I'm back! Help me in before I fall!"

Curel went to the window and leaned out asking: "Give me one reason why I shouldn't just drop you, Inu."

Said Inu looked up at the ladder: "Uhm... because we're very, very good friends?"

Curel rolled her eyes as response and said: "Alright... I shall let it slip this time."

She reached down and helped Inu up who seemed to be just incredibly bad at climbing. She almost fell to the floor when Curel helped her through the window, but could catch herself with her hands and knees.  
Sage sat up to get a look at her, checking if she was alright, but unfortunately these thick layers of clothing didn't allow for a clear look. It was also pretty visible now, that she wasn't wearing this attire out of sheer comfort, as there where huge drops of sweat running down her forehead and her face was glowing with heat. What happened next was surprising to Sage, yet not really, given how Inu looked like she was close to a heatstroke.

"I... I need to get rid of these clothes, Curel!" Inu said with a slightly panicking voice. "I'm overheating!"

No surprise, given that she probably ran in this winter attire all the way to this place.  
"You can't!" Curel responded. "You know what Kyu said. I can get you some ice packs."

"NO!" Inu shouted with surprising aggression in her otherwise peaceful voice. She dug her long, spiky nails into the cloth of her dress and simply pulled it off her body with a seemingly superhuman strength. She threw her woolly cap off her head and tore the sleeves of her top, while Curel was still trying to stop her.

"Stop Inu!" she called. "We can't show this to anyone!"

"He's a friend, isn't he?" Inu responded, half shouting. "He saved your life! Show some trust!"

Curel looked helplessly back and forth between Inu and Sage, until Inu looked up again.  
She clearly wasn't an Elf, but she also wasn't a human either. Her ears where neither round nor long and pointy, but they were attached to the top of her head and had the shape of a wolf's ears with short fur covering it's in and outsides. And by the way that wasn't the only part of her body that was unnaturally furry. The back of her hands and lower arms too, were covered in short-cut fuzzy fur. She also was as muscular as Sage assumed her to be, maybe even a bit more, as her shoulders where pretty wide and powerful for a woman. The fur also existed behind her head and ran down her back until it disappeared in her clothing and finally reappeared in an extremely fluffy tail coming from below her skirt.  
Inu sat down on the couch, next to Sage, panting and trying to her rid of the heat that was captured in her body.  
Sage was... pretty stunned at this sight. He liked her exotically different body shape, but he was even more surprised by her animalistic traits.

"Kyu is a sadist, sending me out in these clothes." Inu sighed and gave Sage a worried look.

Curel contradicted: "Inu, you know this is to your own protection. Each person that knows what you are is an additional danger."

Inu looked up and huffed:" I don't think this amnesiac stranger can pose much of a danger to me..."

She squeaked suddenly, as Sage touched her ears and she turned around, protectively placing her hands over them.

"Those are... real." Sage said slowly, unable to take his look of Inu's head, even though her hands where entirely covering them. Somehow this seemed... familiar to him. He had seen such a creature before, but he could not pin down where.

"Y-yeah they are..." Inu said, blushing slightly. "But please only touch them if necessary, they are quite sensitive."

"O-Oh..." Sage responded carefully. "A-Alright. I'm sorry."

Inu nodded and moved a bit away from Sage so he could properly muster her.  
"So... this is me..." she said. "You would've found out sooner or later anyway. What do you think? Creepy, eh?"

Sage shook his head: "No, not at all. I find it... surprising... but it fits you."

"You think so?" Inu said clearly happy about this judgement." Y-You don't think I'm a freak?"

Again, Sage moved his head from left to right, still inspecting what he could see of her body.  
"No.", he said slowly and added. "... but I would actually like to know what exactly you are."

"O-of course..." Inu said and swallowed hard. "I... I'm what the legends call a 'Wolfelf' or 'Wildelf' depending on the language."

"One of the Dwarven creations?" Sage whispered having absolutely no idea how he knew what that was. "And your race is supposedly extinct. The 3rd Genocide by the Humans..."

"You know about the Dwarves?" Curel asked, sounding genuinely interested, but also wanting to avoid talks about genocide against Inu's race.

"I know they are your ancestors." Sage replied. "But I don't know how I know this."

Curel nodded with clear respect, but even more interest in him written all across her face.

"You are more educated on the history of the Elves then nine out of ten Elves I have met so far... perhaps even more.", she said and stood up again, walking towards the door in her bedroom-section of the apartment. "I am going to take a bath now. I'll leave the door open, so we can keep talking."

She opened the door and lighted the room up, revealing a pretty spacey bath with a huge tub in the ground in front of her that... weirdly enough seemed to be filled already and constantly replacing its water with new one, coming from a tab in the wall.  
Sage was super confused about this behaviour of her.

Was this a new way of flirting?

Was this a threat to not try anything with Inu?

Or did she legitimately just need to get her skin wet again?

"Let's see, Mr. Smartypants..." Curel said with a grin that was so wide, Sage could hear it in her voice, even though he wasn't looking. "Do you know why I need to take a bath 3 times per day?"

Sage sighed: "Of course. Riverelves have adapted to a life close to or completely inside of water. If they do not get water on their skin regularly, it will degrade into dry scales... It's known as Erass, a genetic sickness from which all Riverelves suffer."

"Fascinating..." Curel just responded to this display of pure knowledge, before she hopped into the bathtub.

"You... really know a lot about Elves, Sage." Inu said, seeming just as impressed: "I wish I knew so much about my race."

Sage laughed uncomfortably: "I just wish I knew more about myself. As it is now, my knowledge about Elves seems pretty useless."

Inu nods: "I... can imagine how you feel."

Sage raised a questioning eyebrow. Inu blushed uncomfortably.

"I... don't know my name either." she said slowly. "My Mum placed me in front of the door of this Clan and then ran off. It's Kyu who gave me my name; because she thinks my ears look like the ears of a Shiba Inu. My full name therefore is Inu Shiba... Because Kyu logic."

Again, Sage raised his eyebrow sceptically.  
"It's just the way Kyu thinks. She shapes the world rather than learning about it.", Inu explained.

"Can confirm!", Curel called from the bathtub. "It's sometimes pretty hard to be around our personal mad goddess, but definitely an interesting life to live."

Sage looked at one of his two conversation partners and then asked, so loudly that even the second one could hear it: "So... Kyu... what do you think about her?"

Inu blushed, obviously taking this as too much of a private question, while Curel obviously took much less offense in it: "According to Kyu, the world revolves around her. Heck, she might even be right about that, all things considered."

"How did she get this way?" Sage asked interestedly.

Sage could hear a sigh echo through the bath: "I got a suspicion there... but that's a story she should rather tell you herself. It would be impolite to gossip around such private stories."

Sage was left even more curious but he didn't dig deeper out of politeness. Also, as if on cue, the door opened and Titania stepped in, together with Kyu.

"I got one!" Kyu called upon entering, then immediately froze when she saw Inu with uncovered sleeves and without cap. "Inu!"and said Wildelf twitched and sat back a bit, but this couldn't stop Kyu from rushing over to her and pressing her against the backrest by the shoulders.  
"I told you NOT TO SHOW HIM." she said, remarkably pronouncing the last four words.

"She was overheating!" Sage felt like it was his obligation to throw himself into this conversation as he felt like it was partially his fault that it came to this situation.

"Can confirm!" Curel called from the bath. She seemed to like this catchphrase. "It was either getting rid of one or two layers of cloth or systemic circulation problems."

Kyu was quiet for a second, and then she sighed: "Alright... I just get worried about Inu a lot."

Said girl blushed, obviously appreciating the gesture and said: "Sage already said he wouldn't tell it to anyone."

"Oh I would actually like to hear that myself." Kyu said in a bittersweet tone and stepped with one of her boots onto Sages knee. "Well?"

Sage, who had to look up to Kyu now from his sitting position was quick to nod and if it was just to get rid of the pain below his lap: "Alright, alright I won't tell."

"Promise." Kyu demanded.

"I promise!" Sage reassured which indeed, made Kyu stop hurting him.

"Alright... I guess we'll have to take your word on it" she said. "But seriously, Inu's life as we know it depends on this staying a secret. If you break it, then I'll personally rip your tongue out."She said it so casually, as if she was threatening other people with the prospect of taking their ability to speak on a daily basis. Sage had the strong suspicion though, that this was just Kyu's specific kind of humour; half-ironic death threats.

"Anyway.", Titania involved herself into the conversation again and sat down on the couch. "That means only one of us is missing at this point, eh?"

"Laniel will make it.", Kyu assured her. "She ran south, so she will have the longest way back after she escaped from the police. In the meantime, why don't we turn on one of the news networks and bathe in our glory like Curel bathes in water."

She picked up the remote control and took a seat between Inu and Sage while skipping a few channels. Titania dropped down in an armchair as well as Kyu finally found the news channel and waited for the advertising break to end.

"And were back at the Avalon-Bridge to the John Bell District.", an overly tidy dressed, white, Human female reporter announced into a camera. "Just half an hour ago, another despicable terrorist attack took place, wounding 4 people, 2 of them critical."  
This was the Moment, Kyu's face brightened up and she offered Sage a high-five. Reluctantly, he clapped his palm into hers. The news lady didn't bother their enthusiasm, but continued.  
"According to eye-witness testimony's, the perpetrators of this violent attack where 6 Elves, coming from the clan-milieu of the Elves, that is still running rampant in the old city and the Dublin District. Minister of internal affairs, Jon Welland has released a press statement to the attacks, condemning them as 'violent, hateful and coming from Elves, who do not appreciate the things that mankind has done for them.' He also announced that..."

The rest of the lady's statement drowned in a shower of 'boos' coming not only from Kyu, but from Titania and even Curel in the bathroom. The 'boos' soon got dissolved into mad laughter, as photos of the beat-up victims was shown and one of the guys from the bridge was interviewed, the one who survived the attack unharmed due to the pure fact he wasn't in the camp when the Elves attacked.

"That guy..." Titania pointed out amidst a short break of the laughing. "...literally has a swastika on his biker coat. I wish I had punched him too."

Kyu nodded in agreement as the biker said into the camera, in English of course: "They attacked out of nowhere! We literally just camped by the roadside for two days and these Elf terrorists instantly attack upstanding citizens like us. Where is the government in protecting us in this?"

"I doubt this douche bag is even able to know such words." Kyu stated quietly.

Titania nodded in agreement: "Yeah, that's not his statement, that's a Maranurr National Party statement, placed in his mouth..."

"This might come back at us..." Inu threw in quietly, but Kyu shook her hit.

"Doing nothing comes back at us." she replied. "Elfish history ever since the humans arrived is a series of events on which we should've acted but didn't."

"Hey!" someone called through the window.

Sage didn't know it was possible to turn off a TV as fast as Kyu did in this moment. The whole group stood up and walked to the window, where Laniel was finally climbing into the room. Even Curel stepped out of the bath now, with a towel wrapped around her almost non-existent chest to avoid getting stares.

"Welcome back." Titania said and helped her younger sister to get into the room without an accident. "What took you so long?"

Laniel winked at the group and said: "No need to worry about me. I took a route through the Neotonic district. The police don't go there."

While Sage had no idea what that meant, the jaws of every other person present dropped.

"Laniel, are you crazy?" Titania asked. "Mum will be furious."

"She doesn't need to know." Laniel answered obviously feeling the need to defend herself. "Also, what do you care? It was the safest route."

"Safest route?" Kyu asked with a hysteric laugher following up on it.

Curel stepped into the conversation with a concerned expression on her face: "Laniel, Elves disappear in that district on a daily basis and reappear as drug addicted, broken husks. That is nothing to mess around with."

"Erm..." Sage cleared his throat to demand attention for a bit. "Would anyone mind explaining what the Neotonic district is?"

Everyone looked at Sage, then back at Laniel and obviously, Curel concluded this was a great opportunity to refresh Laniel on what exactly the Neotonic district was.  
"The Neotonic District..." she explained. "Is on paper an economical zone created by the government and liberated from the boundaries and laws that limit the free market everywhere else. Some call it the Las Vegas of the Pacific. But in reality, it is a fucking dangerous shithole, where drug addiction, legalised slavery and forced prostitution are rampant. Elves who go in there are abducted, hooked onto some drug and released as whores for the Human tourists to enjoy. This is LITERALLY the worst place on this earth for a young woman to be."

Laniel looked at Curel angrily: "Hey, I have used this place several times to escape the police and it always worked well."

For a moment, everyone in the room looked at Laniel with genuinely concerned looks, and then Titania said: "Yeah... Mum really doesn't need to know about that. But you also need to stay away from it, okay?"

Laniel rolled her eyes and nodded: "Yeah, 'Mum'."She walked into the room, past everyone else and looked at the TV: "Are we on air already?"

"Why would you be on air, I wonder?" an old, creaky voice from the door-frame asked.

Everyone turned around with different levels of shock and surprise mixed in their face. Especially Kyu's face also showed an additional layer of nervousity on her face.  
It was Kyu's Grandmother, who entered the room, seemingly out of nowhere and obviously pretty angry. She leaned on a walking stick in her left hand which made her almost look like a stereotype as she entered the room and gave everyone present a more than just slightly pissed off look.

"Sit down." she commanded before anyone had the courage to speak up.

"Can I maybe get some clothes first?" Curel asked shyly, but a simple look of Hlaya was enough to make her comply. "No? Damn..."

Everyone walked over into the living room area and squeezing themselves onto the couch, while Kyu's Nan sat down on the armchair giving everyone as serious glare before saying: "Given the amount of celebration I heard from this room, it seems obvious I am correct to assume you are the ones who beat a bunch of Humans to bloody puddle on the Avalon Bridge today?"

"Not Humans, they were Nazis." Kyu corrected her Grandmother in an impressive feat of aggressive defence. "And I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"I guess, a Riverelf, two Humans and three Elves, one of which has iconic white hair and a mourning cut band together on a daily basis to beat up Humans?", she asked.

"It could've been anyone." Kyu responded. "There are a lot of Antifascist groups out there, where Elves and Humans fight these Nazi shits together."

"Oh really?" her Grandmother said. "Then what is this?"

She reached into the Dyun's pockets and pulled out two of the face masks that they had used during the attack at the bridge this afternoon.  
"I suppose you recognise these? I got them from your room and they are clearly visible on the footage which the police has." she said.

"You searched my room?" Kyu said angrily, but her Grandmother just shrugged.

"You are not married yet, so I am responsible for you." she said. "And I am not letting you go down the same path as your mother."

"My mother is a hero!" Kyu shouted aggressively. "Don't you dare question her achievements for us!"

"What achievements?" her Grandmother shouted. "Your mother, my daughter, was lured in by some bullshit promises of terrorist groups and then she died for them. She achieved nothing!"

"SHE'S NOT DEAD!" Kyu shouted furiously and jumped up. "AND IF SHE IS, THEN SHE DIED AS A MATYR!"

Hlaya didn't respond to this, she just looked up to Kyu with endless disappointment in her eyes, while everyone around Kyu seemed to fear she would start wrecking the room any second now. Instead, Kyu went on a rant: "She is out there, fighting the fight which the Clans should be spearheading, while we are sitting here, doing nothing but working into this godforsaken Human machinery that they use to enslave us! Our race is not a race of cowards that surrenders without a fight, my parents are proving this, but you seem to be hell-bent on destroying anything that she builds up! You are COWARDS! And I hate all of you!"  
With these words she threw a fit and then turned to run out of the room.

Hlaya stood up shouting with all authority that she could muster in her voice: "Kyu Hsaya Ptaha, STAY!"

But Kyu ignored her, leaving the room and slamming the door in exactly the same manner you would expect it from an adolescent stuck neck-deep in her puberty, leaving behind her Grandmother and five of her friends at her mercy.  
Unfortunately... or luckily, depending on the perspective, her Hlaya didn't seem mad any more, but rather extremely sad, even depressed.

"This isn't your fault, Hlaya." Curel said as she refused to speak up. "Kyu is..."

"When I told you to take care of Kyu..." Hlaya interrupted Curel, getting louder again with each word. "I didn't mean help her to conduct terrorist attacks!"Upon the last syllables, she slammed her wrinkled hand onto the couch table and looked up.

"What should we do?" Titania asked. "If we would not help her, she would try to take on these arseholes on herself. And it's not like they didn't deserve it."

"That doesn't matter!" she shouted with a voice, that was clearly on the brink of collapse. "Her actions get more radical and more dangerous each week! This isn't graffiti spraying and saving homeless Elves anymore, this is real political terrorism with real political consequences!"Everyone was just quiet, looking down on their knees.  
"You have to restrain her.", Hlaya continued. "Especially you, Curel. I put you in charge of her actions so you stop her from blowing herself up, not to provide her the materials she needs to blow herself up!"

"I'm sorry..." Curel responded quietly. "I guess I screwed up."

"Yes you did!" Hlaya confirmed and sighed then. "You all get shopping duty for this week. The ENTIRE shopping duty. And I will have to think up an appropriate punishment for Kyu. And later, there will be a personal talk with each of you. Now go back to your rooms and think about what happened today."  
With these words and another angry glare at the group, she stood up and walked towards the exit of the room.

Everyone waited until she was gone, then Curel stood up to get her clothes, while Laniel left out an annoyed sigh: "Shopping duty."

"The entire shopping duty." Inu added.

"Kyu is definitely going to pay for it this time", Titania said.

Everyone stood up, except for Sage who felt like this got way too personal way too quick for his taste. He was now legitimately involved in this clan's family business... and all of this because he wanted to steal some eggs?  
He turned his head after the group, that was already leaving the room and stood up to follow them as Curel put a leg in his way, making him trip. When Sage caught his balance again, everyone else had already left and Curel put up a show again by dropping her towel a bit, just enough to reveal her chest.

"Think about me and consider it," she said with a lusty wink. "The offer still stands."

Sage indeed blushed quite a bit now and again he wondered where this sudden interest from her came from.  
"I-I'm sorry..." he stuttered a bit insecurely. "I'm... not really in the mood right now."

Curel shrugged and pulled her towel up to cover herself again. Either she was a great actor or she really did not mind his honesty, which was a trait Sage did not associate with women.  
"Alright.", she said. "I understand that. You should go to your room then, so I can dress."

Sage nodded rapidly and hastily took two steps to the door. Way too much happened to him in a way too short amount of time. Inu belonged to a supposedly extinct species that for some reason looked familiar to him.

Kyu was... well... being herself.

And apparently he had just rejected a Riverelf who would much rather have him in her bed. This was too intensive.  
And it would not stop yet, because when he arrived back at his room, a familiar old lady stood in front of the door, waiting for him."Hello, stranger without memories..." Kyus grandmother said in a quiet tone. "Would you mind a little chat with an old, worried Elf?"

"N-not at all..." Sage reassured her and opened to door to his room, stepping aside so she could enter first. "C-come in."

Hlaya nodded thankfully and entered the room, heading straight for the only chair in the small chamber, an old office chair by the tiny office table next to the window. She sat down and gazed through the room, from left to right, inspecting his inventory.  
"Hmm..." she finally said. "They really did only give you the bare basics, didn't they? I hope your time here is not uncomfortable."

"N-no, not at all..." Sage reassured with a slight déjà vu feeling crawling up the back of his mind. "It's just... a wild ride, honestly. Having no memories seems to make everything a bit... overwhelming."

Hlaya nodded: "I understand that and I am truly sorry for the inconvenience my granddaughter has put you through."

Sage made a gesture to indicate his casual acceptance of Kyu's behaviour "It's nothing I can't deal with. Though, I admit I have a lot of questions."

"I expected that." Hlaya said in a polite tone, which may be stemmed from her trying to go easy on her now strained voice. "That's part of the reason why I'm here. To answer your questions... but also to make a request for you."

"Alright..." Sage said. "What do you want me to do?"

Hlaya shook her head: "I'll answer your questions first. My request will only make sense with some context."

"Understood." Sage replied and sighed before speaking up again: "Tell me about Kyu... What is the deal with her mother and these radical actions?"

Hlaya sighed again and looked Sage into the eyes with the one eye of hers that was not covered by the mourning-cut: "Well, our family is... a bit complicated. Titania, Laniel and Kyu refer to each other as sisters, even though this is only half true. While Laniel and Titania share the same father and mother, Kyu has a different mother, stemming from her father's second marriage with my daughter."

So that's where the different looks come from..., Sage thought to himself, but didn't dare to interrupt Hlaya, who continued after short pause.

"I... never really liked their father, Tuhar. He was a political radical who almost threw this Clan into chaos with his political idealism. He was part of a communist movement that took a part of the Elves in this country by storm about 50 years ago, when we fought for recognition by the UN. They thought they could unite the Clans under a single banner and cause a revolution that would end the Human rule over this country... Laniel's and Titania's mother divorced him over his idea of a bloody civil war, but Nadya... My sweet little Nadya became completely absorbed by these ideas."  
It obviously got progressively harder for her to talk about the subject. No wonder Kyu and her Grandmother didn't get along about this, when such a great amount of emotions was involved in this.  
"She was only 15 when she started attending the communist rallies and 17 when she became Tuhar's left hand in the Clan. I don't know how old she was when they started dating but... well she was definitely too young to be with a man in his mid-50s... But I accepted it back then, because I thought it was just a phase... but it wasn't. They gathered followers and began to openly question the leadership of this clan. This went on for months, until they tried to take over this building by force. Luckily no one was killed, as they couldn't quite bring themselves to kill their own families for their ideology. The Clan's leader banished Tuhar and everyone who supported him from the Clan. Tuhar accepted his penalty, but made one request... that his pregnant wife would be allowed to stay until her child was born, as they were going to move into a combat zone... and that wife he mentioned was not the wife that the clans leader had married him to, but it was my poor, misguided daughter, standing next to him with a bulge in her belly and a loaded shotgun in her hands."

It was pretty clear that Hlaya was fighting back the tears now, and Sage realized that this was the edge. He sat up: "Alright, I get the message. You don't need to tell the whole story."

Hlaya sobbed once, twice, then swallowed and shook her head again: "No... This is necessary for you to know, if you want to fulfil my request. I'm almost done anyway."  
She took a deep breath and continued: "She spent 4 more months ostracised with the clan, gave birth to Kyu in her room and then packed up her shotgun, her fucking communist flag and her military jacket and just left. No one has ever heard of her again. That's 21 years ago now."

Sage swallowed heavily as the entire story was finished and looked into Hlaya's grieving eyes: "And now you're scared she will follow her mother's path?"

"Scared?" Kyus Grandmother asked with a hysterical sub-tone in her voice and grabbed her head with both of her hands. "I'm terrified of her making the same mistakes as her mother. She lacks the shining, commie-figurehead that Nadya latched onto to radicalise, but she is radicalising anyway. She is going down a path she believes her mother has laid out to her. I did everything I could to stop this from ever happening, but ever since I told her the true story of her mother when she turned 15, she is hell-bent on finding her and... Do something to bring about this dammed dream-castle of a revolution. I can't watch this anymore."

Sage nodded, slowly and carefully. "And what do you want me to do?" he asked.  
Hlaya looked up again.

"She seems to look up to you. I know, right now it seems like she is just dragging you from adventure to adventure, but I've seen this kind of behaviour before, in her mother." she said with slight desperation in her voice. "I want you to stay close to her. And I want you to do what Curel and her sisters are failing at. Please... try to moderate her."


End file.
